Picks and Pans Review: The Magic Bullet

A dose of this highly touted but clunky medical thriller won't leave you feeling much more energized than before you started treatment. Dr. Dan Logan, a fresh-faced research whiz, discovers (gulp) that the egos running the fictitious American Cancer Foundation are greedy, jealous and ruthless. (Can you believe it?) When Logan runs trials of a promising chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, some of the top guns sabotage his work, his career and his life. There's a murder, along about page 300 (Horrors!), to keep things perking and a Very Important Person (the First Lady, no less), who eventually beats the disease with Dan's drug (Hooray!). Along the terminal corridors of this predictable tale, Stein injects an anemic love story and enough lab-babble to flummox those who flunked organic chemistry. The only real magic here is how Bullet manages to stay off life support. (Delacorte, $22.95)